Crossing the border with Blue Jays beat reporter Jordan Bastian.

Jays @ Yanks pregame

Good news on the Vernon Wells front. Jays skip Cito Gaston said Wells is scheduled to make his first Grapefruit League appearance of the spring as a designated hitter on Friday in Dunedin. Wells is coming back from a strained left hammy, suffered Feb. 23.

Gaston said Wells will play center field for maybe three innings on Saturday, will be off on Sunday and then will DH again on Monday. The hope is that Wells will be fine to play center by Opening Day. He played in a Minors game again on Thursday with no issues.

Gaston said Scott Rolen (stiff back) is scheduled to take some batting practice tomorrow and he should be OK in a day or two to play. As for Travis Snider (left knee), Gaston said he’s going to be given a few days off, but the injury isn’t considered serious.

Rod Barajas and Alex Rios, both back from the World Baseball Classic, will be in the lineup tomorrow in Dunedin as well. Gaston also said that Scott Downs looked good in his Minor League appearance on Wednesday. Downs is skedded to pitch one inning on Saturday in his first Grapefruit League game.

I hate to say this, but I have expressed concern multiple times about what appeared to me to be a “rushing” of stretching out Janssen. There was no reason to press him, and now he’s experiencing tightness in his shoulder caused by-guess what-muscle fatigue-caused by-guess what the overwork.

What a bunch of idiots-it’s not like we don’t have lots of arms, we keep pissing about with this kid and we will destroy his career.

And if the Jays medical staff cleared him for this workload, I say we got the wrong medical staff and its time to replace them with people who know what the hell they’re doing.

gjays you said it Janssen should be slowing added to the bull pen not stretched into a starter I also have said that from the start. Its not fair to him or anyone else to rush him. we have Richmond, mills, and Clement to handle the back end of the rotation.

I dunno which way is better for janssen, you know as a starter he only pitches every 4th day or so and has a bullpen in between. As a guy in the ‘pen he is expected to be ready to go whenever, if he can’t go whenever he should be in triple A. Tightness isn’t much, discomfort happens all the time, at least Casey’s bein honest about it, keep your fingers crossed, I know I will

Im sure Toronto’s medical staff knows more about his injury than any of us. I wouldnt call them idiots, considering you know they are Doctors. Im sure the last thing they want to do it ruin a players career. The shoulder is delicate and some guys never recover fully from their injuries. Its not the doctors fault.

okgojays
The thing that really concerned me in the post was the statement it was as a result of muscle fatigue. To me that means too many pitches thrown. True, he only goes into games every 5th day, but they also have their “throw days” in which he tosses at least as many or more than he does in a game.
I still think, considering the injury, he should have been eased into a 1 inning bull pen role. Eased into meaning, at the start he only goes every 4-5 days and down the road that changes to once every two days, as an example. Too many guys with this injury never come back-that’s a well known fact.
Any errors we make with any pitcher should always be on the side of caution, not maximum effort. They are simply too valuable to burn. At least, that’s my opinion.

Denoit
So exactly which ones of the training staff are Doctors-none that I can see. How do we know if an actual Doctor looked at Janssen or just some of the training staff?
All I know, is Janssen had a very serious injury, one which a lot of guys never come back from and they pressed him and possibly hurt him again.
I still haven’t seen them announce they’re sending Janssen for an MRI yet, which, in my view, is the very minimum they should do to ensure no further damage before they wind him up again.
I also have no idea who made the decision to stretch him out like they did-whoever made that decision is the idiot.

One way or the other though, I expect the problem with Janssen opens the door for Mills who goes today. It will be interesting, as well, to see if the Jays recall Cecil or Romero, just in case Richmond can’t get ready or can’t produce.

So let’s see what Mills is made of today, the door certainly just swung wide open for him. Good luck to him.

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